


Harbor In the Tempest

by AcrobatElle



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Neverland, Neverland Renaissance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrobatElle/pseuds/AcrobatElle
Summary: After an attack by the Lost Boys, Emma and Killian find themselves in an impossible situation. Canon divergence after 3x07.





	1. Chapter 1

They’ve just finished filling the canteens when he hears it. A familiar rustle somewhere behind him in the jungle, the same noise that kept him on edge for years in this hellish place, the one that left him looking over his shoulder for centuries. He glances over at Emma to see she’s oblivious, capping the water and adjusting the satchel over her shoulder, her ears not as attuned to this place as his are.

“Swan,” he whispers. She turns to face him and he raises a finger to his lips, tilting his head in the direction of the noise.

They stand there frozen for a long moment listening, the only sounds the occasional call of a bird or the chirping of an insect. He’s just about to relax when he hears it again, and by the tensing of Emma’s shoulders she can as well. She looks toward the noise and back at him, instinctively reaching over her shoulder for her cutlass.

The cutlass she’d given back to Baelfire.

Her eyes widen, and the first tinge of panic starts creeping up his nerves. Emma glances around for something, _anything_ she can use as a weapon as he draws his own sword, stepping between the noise and Emma. It could just be an animal, or one of their group wondering what’s taking them so long, or -

The Lost Boys appear, faces slowly emerging from the jungle. First just in front of him, and then to his right, and his left, swords glinting in the sunlight and arrows dark-tipped with poison.

A dozen weapons against one. 

He spares the quickest of glances back and sees Emma frozen, still empty-handed. He turns back to his attackers, one last sweep of the landscape as he considers their options. There’s only one.

“ _Run_.”

There’s only a split-second before they both turn and sprint, splashing over the shallow stream and barreling headlong into the jungle. They need to put some distance between them and the Lost Boys, take advantage of their longer strides and find some kind of hiding place to wait it out as they go by. But as his legs and lungs first start to burn as they duck and tumble and run, dodging arrows the whole way, he realizes what Pan’s crew is really doing.

They’re being herded.

He’s knows it’s some kind of trap and he knows it’s useless to try and avoid it. Stopping to fight means instant death - if Emma only had a sword they could chance it but it’s impossible with the arrows in play. Running means they at least have a _chance_ , and so he ignores his tiring legs and runs as fast as they can carry him. 

They can’t quite put enough distance between them and their attackers - arrows still fly, whizzing by their heads as they navigate the jungle at breakneck speed. He’s dimly aware of the trees thinning but focuses on forcing his legs to move, forcing himself to keep breathing. It’s only when the trees disappear completely that he lets his himself slow down, stunned at the sudden change of scenery and skidding to a halt when he realizes where they’ve been driven to.

They’re faced with open air, the ground in front of them stopping on a sheer cliff and giving a foreboding view of the jungle below.

They’ve only a few seconds until the Lost Boys catch up and he runs to the edge, looking down to gauge the length of the fall. It looks to be hundreds of feet, jagged rocks along most of the face of the cliff, but -

A few ledges poke out on the way down, some only a few feet wide and others the start of new cliffs themselves. A long, extended piece of rock sticks out below, perhaps twenty feet down and as deadly as it looks it’s _something_ , a possible temporary escape. A hand grabs his arm and he looks up, Emma’s face trained down at their possible salvation, her features drawn and tight.

“We can - “

Her words are cut off with the sharp _whiz_ of an arrow cutting through the air and her choked-off gasp as it pierces her flesh. He can’t see much, just that it’s somewhere in her abdomen and he moves on autopilot, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her over the edge as he jumps. The fall feels longer than it actually is, a horrified suspension of time as they drop and he hopes they haven’t overshot the landing, hopes the last thing he sees in this world isn’t Emma’s pained face.

The ground hits him with a shock, a searing jolt through his ankles as he tries to roll out of the landing and keep Emma within his grasp at the same time. His legs briefly go numb before the pain sets in but it’s such a relief to simply have _survived_ that he forgets himself, resting on his back for a brief moment as he catches his breath.

He’s hardly had a second to recover when a face peers over from the cliff above, a Lost Boy who waves his compatriots over to join him. He’s barely registered what’s happening when three sets of arrows are drawn, pointed down directly at he and Emma both. She cries out when he grabs her and rolls them towards the wall, a hollowed-out space into the cliff that takes them out of the fire, arrows clattering against the stone as he rolls them both from view of the boys above. He winces in sympathy when he sees the arrow stuck in her - in her side, perhaps an inch or two in from the curve of her waist - and how badly it must have been jarred in the fall and the way he rolled them into this little cave without a thought.

“ _Shit_ ,” she swears, curling up into a fetal position, her hands shaking as they draw up to her abdomen. She looks up at him, her face gone gray, and her eyes widen the longer she looks. “Hook… are you…”

He turns in confusion, following her eyes until he sees the tip of an arrow just by his face. He’s startled until he realizes the arrow struck through the shoulder of his thick leather coat, a quarter-inch from piercing his flesh but embedded in the leather instead. He yanks it out quickly, not caring about the tears in the fabric as he tosses the arrow aside. “No, Swan, I’m fine.”

He kneels next to her to examine the wound - bloody _fuck_ , it went straight through her - but she swats him away. “Make sure they can’t get down here first.”

“Swan - “

“ _No_ ,” she hisses. “We’re sitting ducks here. Make sure we’re safe before you yank this fucking thing out, okay?”

He starts to protest, but if she’s feeling well enough to swear at him and think tactically she can probably survive the next few minutes. He ignores the throbbing in his ankles and approaches the ledge cautiously, just staying far enough back that he won’t be visible to anyone at the top of the cliff and he waits, listening for any sounds of the Lost Boys rustling above. He hears nothing and hazards a reach with his left arm, his hook poking out into the line of sight of anyone watching from above. He expects the whizzing of another arrow, prepared to snatch his arm back, but nothing comes. He takes another step, out further, and looks up before darting back, expecting some kind of ambush, but the jungle above them is quiet, the only sounds the calls of a few errant birds echoing through the valley below.

Once convinced they’re alone, he surveys the scenery around him and it’s both encouraging and hopeless - nothing but a nearly-vertical cliff face to his right and left, with no way to climb up, down, or sideways. The Lost Boys couldn’t get down to them if they tried, but it also means he and Emma are stuck for the foreseeable future unless someone assists them.

But he can’t think in the long-term, not with Emma injured as she is. He turns and looks to her. “They’re gone, for the time being at least. They can’t get down here, not unless they jump as we did or bring something to help them climb down. And if they try it I’ll shove them off the cliff before they can stand.”

“Good.” Her jaw is tense and she looks down at her torso, the arrow run through her in a manner that would look almost comical if it weren’t so dangerous. “I think I’m gonna need some rum before you do this.”

He’s by her side in an instant, handing her his flask and trying to gauge the situation before going further. “Not too much, love. I’ll need some to clean the wound, and too much of it will make you bleed more easily.”

It would be sound logic in any other situation but they’re both pretending, he knows. If the arrow were laced with poison -

She nods and takes a sip, grimacing before bracing herself and taking another.

“How’s the pain?”

“Not as bad as childbirth, but pretty damn bad.” She takes another chug of rum and coughs at the strength of it, cringing when her damaged muscles flex around the spear run through her. “ _Fuck._ Henry.”

“We’re going to get Henry,” he says, with a conviction that surprises him. “But right now we need to take care of this. Let me see.”

He can’t see much, not with her shirt pinned to her torso by the arrow. He raises his hook to where it’s pierced her front and looks to Emma, silently waiting for her assent. She nods, and he tears the fabric down, leaving her tank top mostly intact but allowing him to lift the shirt to see her wound. He does the same on her other side and gently lifts the garment away.

The entry looks clean, close enough to the edge of her waist that it didn’t pierce any organs, only a small dribble of blood emanating from the entry and exit points.

“I can remove this,” he tells her. “They’ve hit nothing vital here, but it’s going to hurt like hell. Are you ready?”

She trembles a bit before she answers. “No. But do it anyway. You’ve done this before, right?”

“Aye, several times. A few on myself, in fact.”

“Good.” Her head drops, resting on the stone floor. “Just make it quick, okay?” Her voice is pained, almost resigned, and he can hear the hint of fear in it.

He hesitates. It’s one thing to pull an arrow from his own flesh, but the idea of doing it to Emma gives him pause. “Perhaps we should wait for the rum to work first.”

She nods, still shaking. “Yeah, that’s - yeah.”

“All right.”

They wait a few minutes, giving the alcohol time to settle in her veins. Part of him wants to take her hand, give her something to squeeze on as she works through the pain, but he suspects she’ll be less than receptive. “I need to break off the end of this,” he tells her, referring to the feathered end of the arrow. “I can slide the rest of it out once that’s done.”

It’ll be the worst part, he knows, the tension needed to snap the arrow likely to pull at her insides and drag the wood against her already-damaged flesh. She seems to realize the same when she registers what needs to be done. Still, she tells him to do it.

She doesn’t scream.

* * *

 

The arrow comes out relatively easily, one quick and brutal moment as he pulls it from Emma, and she hardly registers a reaction. A sharp breath through her teeth, but she manages to hold back from anything more. He covers the wound instantly with his scarf, him pressing it to her front while Emma holds it in back, curled up on her side.

“Almost done, love,” he assures her. “Can you…?”

She nods when she realizes he needs his hand free, pressing the fabric onto each side to staunch the bleeding while he retrieves his flask once more.

“This is going to hurt,” he warns her stupidly, as though they both don’t know what’s about to come.

“Wait,” she says, her lips pulled into a tight line.

“We should get this over wi - “

“Is it Dreamshade?”

The questions stops him in his tracks. “I don’t know.”

“Find out before you waste that stuff on me.”

“There’s no _wasting_ here. Even if it is bloody Dreamshade, we can get out of here and give you the same water I gave your father - “

“And how the hell are we going to get out of here?” she hisses, rocking a bit where she lies on the ground.

“Your family’s still here. They could find us and  - “

“Just check, okay?” she asks, the fire falling out of her voice. “I just - I need to know.”

He starts to argue but the words die on his lips. “All right.” He first grabs the discarded arrow, studying the tip and seeing no trace of the poison, only Emma’s blood. “I can’t see anything here. Let me…” he reaches for where she’s pressing his scarf to her front, gingerly lifting her shaking hand and examining the injury.

It’s fairly clean, considering the crude method he’d used to remove the arrow, but she’s not bleeding particularly badly. More important, though, is the lack of the telltale black crawling under her skin. He breathes deep, relief settling into his bones as he realizes she may not have been handed a death sentence after all.

“Well?” she asks.

His face breaks into a smile as he exhales again, and he can see the tension in her brow lift when he looks down at her. “I think you’re in the clear.”

Her eyes close and she laughs, just the smallest bit, stopping short as the damaged muscles in her abdomen contract. “Good,” she says on a cough.

“I still need to clean this out, Swan.”

“I was afraid of that,” she sighs. “Just get it over with, okay?”

It’s the worst noise she makes yet when he pours the rum over her wounds, a pained, strangled sound he could go the rest of his days without hearing ever again. She stays strong, though, sucking in harsh breaths through her teeth as the burning subsides. “Got a bandage? We need to figure a way out of here and I can’t be bleeding all over the place.”

He has nothing of the sort, his satchel only containing a few fruits he picked up on their walk and the canteens they’d filled before being attacked; everything else lies back at the camp.

“No. But maybe…” he shrugs off his coat and reaches up to his right shoulder with his hook, the thin material of his shirt tearing easily as he removes the sleeve. It’s not all that long but he supposes her waist is small enough for it to wrap around; she looks taken aback as he destroys the garment and helps her sit up, draping the sleeve around her abdomen and pulling it tight. She starts to reach up to tie it but he can’t help himself, leaning down to pull the knot tight with his teeth and trying his best to ignore the scent of lavender that still wafts from her skin after so many days in Neverland.

He’s reassured to see her familiar eyeroll when he lifts his head and gives her a wink, her breaths evening out and her hands beginning to steady themselves. The strength of his relief stuns him, even in the wake of his admission at the Echo Caves, and it only makes his revelation there that much more real.

He swallows it down, tries to be strong for her. “Ready to get out of here, love?”

“Oh God, yes.”

* * *

 Wishful thinking, it seems, is useless.

They’ve nowhere to go. Nothing but sheer cliff faces to the right and left of them, and any hopes of continuing downward are dashed when they realize the next ledge below them is nearly a hundred feet down with no way to safely reach it.

Going up, at least on first glance, seems just as fruitless a prospect. Hook can’t even enjoy the process of Emma climbing onto his shoulders, not when she’s clearly still in considerable pain and not entirely steady when she stands on his shoulders and reaches up the cliff from the ledge of their little cave carved into the side of the mountain.

“No luck?” he asks, grabbing at her ankle to keep her steady as she reaches up and tries to find a handhold on the mountainside.

She gives it another few minutes of trying before stopping with a sigh. “No. It’s basically straight up-and-down and there’s nothing I can - dammit - there’s no way to - “

The way she stops mid-sentence worries him, and he can feel her legs begin to shake as she stands on his shoulders. “Swan?”

“Get me down. _Now._ ”

The tone of her voice has him moving before she can even react, sliding her from his shoulders and grabbing her around her waist as she slips down, muttering an apology when she lets out a pained noise at being jostled. “What is it?” he asks, reluctant to let her go as she steps away from him, holding up a hand in supplication.

“I’m okay. I just got dizzy for a second.”

He can tell the excuse is hollow even to Emma’s ears. “You’re _not_ okay.”

“ _You_ try standing on someone’s shoulders with a giant cliff behind you and see how well you do,” she snaps, pulling farther away from him. It’s another pathetic protest; they both know a fear of heights had nothing to do with this.

Her face grows whiter and she takes a few steps back, leaning against the stone wall.

“Swan?”

She shakes her head. “It’s probably blood loss or the rum or… something.”

“You should sit, then. At least for a moment.”

The fact that she doesn’t fight him on it, simply nods and slides down, leaning back against the wall as she does so, makes him uneasy. Everything about the situation makes uneasy, something niggling at the back of mind, something he’s not seeing, something he’s forgotten, just -

_Just what is Pan up to?_

He says nothing, simply goes for his satchel and finds a canteen, handing it off to her and taking a seat on the other side of the little holed-out cave they’ve found themselves trapped in.

He tries not to stare as she drinks and they don’t speak for a while, heartbeats slowing as the adrenaline wears off. She doesn’t look better after a time but she doesn’t look worse, either, closing her eyes and resting her head back against the wall.

“What are we going to do?” she asks, unmoving, her words directed at the ceiling.

“Unless you’ve a ladder or some rope, I don’t see a way to get us out of here without help. Our best bet is to wait and hope your family finds us.”

Her head snaps up. “What? No.”

“Pardon?”

“We can’t just sit here and _wait_. Nobody knows where we are and the Lost Boys could come back any minute, probably with ropes. We have to find another way to get out of here.”

He gestures outward, indicating the massive valley below them. “If you’ve got an idea, I’m all ears. But we can’t climb and we can’t go down, not unless you’ve got a ladder hidden in that satchel I don’t know about. Or if you feel like climbing on my shoulders again.”

She huffs. “Could you at least _try_ and be helpful? I’m not about to sit here just waiting to die.”

Worried as he is for her, her words push just the right buttons and he can’t stop himself. “I’m not being helpful enough? I’m sorry, it must have been Pan who pulled that arrow out of you. How silly of me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mutters. “Just help me figure a way out of here.” She looks around, biting her lip. “Your hook. Can you use it to -- ?”

He’s about to snap at her once more, because of _course_ he’s thought of that already and dismissed it outright, but manages to bite back a sarcastic remark. “Doubtful, love. It’s a useful weapon, but it can hardly carve into stone like this, much less dig in enough to allow me to climb.”

She rubs at her forehead, tension overwhelming her features. “Can you at least try?”

He sighs. “As you wish.”

Much to his consternation she gets up to watch rather than sit and rest, standing a few feet back as he steps carefully to the ledge on one side of the cave, sparing a glance up to ensure the Lost Boys haven’t returned before reaching out with his hook and searching for any sort of weakness in the rock wall. He can’t find one; the stone smoothed over from eons of wind and rain. He looks back to Emma before planting his feet firmly, setting a balance point and pulling back with his arm, swinging his hook against the cliff with all his might.

It sends off a shower of sparks when he makes contact, his hook ricocheting from the stone and sending painful vibrations up his arm. There’s only a tiny chip left on the cliffside from the point of his hook; he may as well have been trying to cut into an anvil for all the dent he’d made.

He turns back to raise an eyebrow at Emma and regrets it immediately when her face falls. “Sorry, love,” he says, his voice soft. “We’ll figure out something else.”

She sighs and looks around once more. “Is there anything we can burn? Start a signal fire?”

“Nobody even knows we’re missing yet,” he points out.

“Yeah, but they will soon. They’re probably expecting us back right around now. We can wait a little bit, and then…”

“The only flammable things we’ve got are the satchel and our clothing. Or, rather, _your_ clothing. I’m afraid leather doesn’t burn well.” In any other situation he’d smirk, but he can’t find the will to do so, not with Emma looking increasingly hopeless as he speaks. “We don’t have enough to sustain any kind of fire for more than a few minutes, and we wouldn’t get enough smoke out of it for a serviceable signal, I’m afraid.”

She stays quiet and looks out into the jungle, her face despondent.

“There may be another way.” He’s hesitant to even bring it up but the desperation in her eyes as she looks at him is enough to make him push forward. “Magic.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve had pixie dust on you this whole time, I swear to God, Hook - “

He shakes his head. “No, Swan. _Your_ magic.”

She blinks at him, disbelieving. “What, you think I can just poof us out of here like I’m Regina? I can barely light a damn candle! Even then I was only able to do it because you were -” she stops herself, looking to her feet.

He files those words away for examination later and grabs her arm. “I don’t expect you to be able to teleport us, Swan, but you _have_ conjured a flame before. If you want a signal fire, start one. I know you can do it.”

She closes her eyes on a heavy exhale. “Dammit,” she mutters. She pulls away from his grasp and steps back to the center of the cave. “Fine. Okay. I can do this,” she says, more to herself than him. “Just… stay back, okay? I’ve never tried to make a fireball before. This could go badly.”

He nods, stepping away from her until his back is to the wall. “You’ve got this.”

She closes her eyes once more and his eyes drift down the makeshift bandage at her torso while she attempts to steady herself with several deep breaths. She’s masking the pain well enough for now but he’s had similar injuries over the course of his long life and knows just how much agony she’s in. He knew she was strong, was always impressed by it, but watching her now is even more remarkable.

She opens her hands, palms facing up, and her face tenses as she attempts to summon some sort of spark. After a few moments she blinks down at her hands, confusion clouding her features before she shakes her head and tries again, her brow furrowing with her second attempt.

He remains quiet, not wanting to interrupt her as her fingers ball into fists, her knuckles going white before she shakes out her hands and breathes deep, widening her stance before looking to her hands once more. He’s surprised the intensity of her stare alone isn’t enough to start a flame, but after a few minutes of trying she shakes her head, eyes gone wide.

“It’s gone,” she finally whispers. She looks up to him in barely-restrained panic. “I can’t - “

“Of course you can,” he assures her. “I’ve seen you do it. You just - “

“No, I mean I _can’t_. As in, my magic is completely gone.”

“What do you mean, _gone_?”

“I don’t know how to explain it! I could… it’s like I could feel my magic before, you know? Even when I didn’t know what the hell to do with it or how to make it work, it was _there_. And now it’s not. I tried to tap into it just now and there was _nothing_.”

“Perhaps it’s your injury,” he says gently. “You should rest. Maybe if you take a break - “

She finally explodes. “Dammit, Hook, I _can’t_ take a break! Henry’s still out there and I _can’t do anything about it_ while I’m stuck here! And we don’t have a way out and I don’t have my magic, and - “ she cuts herself off and turns, wrapping her arms around her torso and looking out over the valley once more.

He stamps out the impulse to go to her, keeping his mouth shut and backing away as far as possible, the only semblance of privacy he can give her in this small space. He averts his gaze and waits. She’s not crying, at least not audibly, but her breathing takes time to calm down, to settle into something resembling a steady rhythm.

“Okay,” she finally says, and he looks up to see her eyes wetter than before but a determined set to her features. “We’ll just… we’ll figure something out. But if the Lost Boys are coming back, we need to be ready for that first.”

Killian nods, glad for the distraction even if it means facing another fight to the death - he at least knows how to handle those. “You should take my sword, love. I’ve got my hook, and I’m certain I can avail an attacker of his cutlass.”

“All right. We don’t really have anything else, but - wait a minute.” She looks up and he can see the wheels turning in her head. “That’s it. That’s how we get out.”

“I’m not sure I follow, love.”

“The Lost Boys. They’ll have to find some way down here if they’re going to finish us off. Ropes, ladders, whatever, right?”

He smiles as he catches her meaning. “There we go, Swan. Deal with the nasty little buggers and climb up using their own equipment, is it? You’d make a hell of a pirate, you know.” And suddenly she’s smiling back, only the second time she’s directed such an expression at him and had it be genuine, hope blooming in his chest for more reasons than one.

Until Emma’s face falls and she begins swaying on her feet. She stares at him, confusion clouding her features as she takes a step forward, or at least tries to. He covers the distance between them in a flash, catching her before her legs can give out completely. Her brings her to the ground slowly, trying to steer their momentum to the cave’s wall and arranging her to sit with her back against it, a mumbled “What the hell?” against his shoulder as they sink to the floor.

“Are you all right?” he finally asks once he’s gotten her situated. “What happened?”

She just stares at him, completely bewildered, almost the same as when her magic failed her.

“Emma.”

She blinks and shakes her head as if to clear it. “I dunno. My legs just sort of… stopped working.”

“Are you dizzy again?”

“A little,” she admits.

It sounds like the effects of simple blood loss, but when he checks her wound the bleeding has nearly stopped, her not having lost nearly enough to put her in the state she is now. But she’s frightfully pale and the clouded look hasn’t quite left her eyes, and that same feeling creeps up on him again, that’s he’s forgetting something, some angle he can’t quite put together.

“Don’t move, just rest,” he says, low and soothing, before standing to approach the ledge once more. He looks up to the top of the cliff, squinting in the sun and listening, the only sounds the odd call of a bird and the insects chirping in the jungles below.

_What is he missing?_

He steps back into the shade of the cave and picks up the arrow he’d pulled from Emma’s flesh. He examines it carefully, more closely than he had in the heat of the moment earlier, still finding no trace of Dreamshade as expected - Emma’s wound still shows no signs of it.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Just thinking.” He sets the weapon back down and his eyes drift to the second arrow, the one that’d pierced his coat but left him otherwise unharmed. He picks it up, turning it over in his hand and silently willing it to speak to him, to give him some sort of answer. He doesn’t even know why he picked it up, not when it completely missed -

His blood runs cold.

“Emma,” he says slowly,  turning to look at her. “You thought I’d been hit with this.”

“Yeah. And?”

“If you thought so, then likely the Lost Boys did as well.”

Her eyes narrow, most of the dazed look in them gone. “What are you saying?”

He sighs. “They’re not coming back to finish us off. They think they already have.”

Emma’s features pull tight. “Why? Even if they’d hit your shoulder it wouldn’t have been fatal. And where they got me was… okay, it’s not exactly a walk in the park, but it didn’t kill me either. So _what are you saying?_ ”

He chews on his lip and sighs once more, before looking her straight in the eye and steeling himself to say the words.

“There are many poisons here in Neverland, Emma. Not just Dreamshade.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

Emma’s face grows even paler, a feat he’d not thought possible, her lips pulled into a tight line.

He’s sure he looks much the same, his sudden realization having turned his veins to ice, his stomach twisting uncomfortably and his heart made of lead. He’s felt this before - on two separate occasions ( _three_ , a traitorous voice in his head supplies, reminding him once again of how Liam was snatched back from the clutches of death only to succumb as soon as they thought they were free) - and the depth of it shakes him. She is not Milah. She is not Liam. And yet -

“What kind of poisons?” She interrupts his thoughts, biting off the words through clenched teeth.

He needs the acid in her tone to bring him back, to distract him even, but when he looks at her that familiar feeling once again lodges itself in his chest, tenterhooks that refuse to let go. “There’s at least a dozen I know of, and probably several dozen more that I don’t.”

“You said there was nothing on that arrow.” It’s not quite an accusation, but close enough.

“I said there was no _Dreamshade_ on that arrow.” He picks it up once more, examining it. “Whatever was on it either stayed inside you or isn’t visible to human eyes.”

“Any ideas?” her voice wobbles on the words.

“Well, we can cross Dreamshade off the list.” He regrets the words the instant they leave his mouth, and her eyes grow hard when she hears them.

“This isn’t fucking funny.”

“I know, love. I’m sorry.” He holds her gaze for a moment and wills her to see it - she doesn’t need his wit right now and he can hardly blame her for snapping, not when she’d gone from figuring a way out this mess to being handed a death sentence less than a minute later. She seems to sense it in him and her features relax slightly.

He takes it as a win and and makes his way over to her, kneeling next to her. “Perhaps I can narrow it down. How do you feel right now?”

She sighs. “Just peachy.”

“Swan,” he warns.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “I feel… tired. Like nothing in my body wants to work.”

“And your head?”

“It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, not exactly. Are you seeing or hearing anything odd? Hallucinations?”

She shakes her head. “No, but my thoughts are… not slower, but…” she trails off, as though searching for the right words. He nods in encouragement, waiting. “It’s like I have to work harder to think. Like I’m drunk but trying to act sober. Kind of.” She huffs. “God, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“No, I understand,” he assures her. “Are you in any pain? Aside from the obvious, of course.”

She glances down to her torso. “No, I - no.”

“All right.” He reaches out, pressing his palm gently to her forehead. She seems surprised at his touch but doesn’t protest as he checks for a fever and finds none - her skin is cool beneath his fingers, in fact, a stark contrast to the humid air around them.

“So? Got a diagnosis, doc?”

He shakes his head before looking up at her. “I’m afraid not, Swan. Most of the poisons I’m familiar with would have killed you already, and the rest would have you screaming in agony.”

Her voice goes flat. “Well, lucky me.”

“If you’d seen how some of my crew members met their demise, you wouldn’t be so flippant.” He turns and sits with his back to the wall, a foot away from Emma, completely at a loss.

They’re quiet for awhile, coiled tight and ready to snap but neither of them ready to speak. Emma’s hands twist in her lap and he digs under his nails with the tip of his hook, the silence stretching out between them. He can only imagine what she’s thinking (though he’s sure he has a fair idea), but his own mind races and keeps him from contemplating Emma’s own thoughts any further.

He wants her, that much he knows. She’s stunningly beautiful and he’d be blind not to see it, but it’s far more than that - there’s a steady strength to her he admires, a level of devotion to her family that pulls at him in the strangest way, opens up old wounds he’d rather not revisit. What would his life have been like, he wonders, if his father had possessed that same trait?

Her kiss made him reconsider himself, his entire reason for being - with one touch of her lips an entire realm of possibilities opened up to him but they were just that - possibilities. When had that shifted from mere potential to something tangible?

Losing it - her - would crush him. He’s certain of that.

“We’re not gonna make it, are we?” she says, quiet and resigned.

Her words cut through him, sharp and jagged as his own thoughts. He can’t lie to her. “I don’t know.”

“What the hell kind of poison is this, anyway? Shouldn’t it hurt? Hasn’t every damn poison you’ve run across here been painful?” she asks.

“Aye,” he concedes. “But I wouldn’t put anything past Pan. He may have created it especially for us. He thought we’d both be stricken with it,” he reminds her.

“Then what’s so bad about this? Maybe it’s not fatal. Maybe I’m just sick and - “ she stops, almost like she can’t convince herself any further.

His fist clenches before he looks at her. “You feel helpless right now, don’t you? That’s what it’s doing to you. It’s already taken your magic. Now it’s taking your physical strength. Be honest, Emma - could you stand right now if you wanted?”

Her glare is strong, but she doesn’t fight him on it. “No. Happy?”

“Bloody fuck, _no._ ” He shakes his head. “This poison wasn’t chosen or designed with you in mind, Swan. It was for me.”

“What?”

“Am I wrong?” he asks, more harshly than he’d intended. “That this poison makes you feel helpless? Not in control of yourself?”

She doesn’t respond, and her face tells him all he needs to know.

“He picked the perfect thing,” he mutters. “And now you’re caught up in it. I’m sorry, Swan. This should be for me and me alone.”

“Well, we’re both here, so…”

Despite himself, he feels the corners of his mouth turn up. “All hope isn’t lost just yet. Your parents could find us, or Regina, or even the bloody Crocodile.”

“Or Pan could show up and decide he doesn’t want me to die slowly after all.”

His skin crawls around the word _die_. “No offense, love, but your mother’s optimism seems to have skipped a generation.”

“Shut up.” She sighs and looks back to her lap. “Wait a minute. Why would he want us to die slowly, anyway? Why not just take us out?”

“Distraction,” he says simply. “It’s no accident we were driven specifically to this place, I’d wager. Even if neither of us were hit we’d still be trapped.”

“And with us stuck down here, that means the rest of the crew will be looking for us instead of Henry,” she finishes.

“Precisely. And if they do find us we’ll have yet another mission to retrieve the water that saved your father.”

“And even if we weren’t stuck down here, if we’d been hit with the arrows anyway…”

“Aye. As long as at least one of us were injured his goal would be accomplished, whether we escaped the Lost Boys or not.” He’s trying to think of a way out, he truly is. Any scenario that doesn’t end in her wasting away in this hellish place, one that doesn’t end with him starving to death after Emma dies - and seven hells, that’s a fate he desperately wishes never entered his mind, one that physically pains him to contemplate. Pan wouldn’t hesitate to leave their bodies in some easy-to-find location, he’s certain. The demon would relish the opportunity to see the looks on her parents’ faces.

Perhaps the Lost Boys never intended to poison him after all. He’d take Dreamshade a thousand times over rather than waste away on this cliff with only Emma’s body to keep him company. He’d -

He needs to stop thinking.

“Why didn’t you keep any of it?” Emma’s voice cuts through his increasingly-grim thoughts.

“Keep what?”

“The water. Why didn’t you keep any of it? We had enough canteens.” Her words are measured but he can feel the quiet anger beneath them. “Considering how much Pan loves Dreamshade, it would have made sense to keep some around.” Her meaning is crystal-clear: _I wouldn’t be going through this right now if you hadn’t emptied the canteen immediately after David drank from it._

“That was a far too dangerous idea for me to even consider,” is all he says, his thoughts taking another foul turn, more memories he’d rather not relive.

“Too dangerous?” She scoffs. “What the hell, Hook? I don’t like the idea of being forced to stay in Neverland any more than you do, but it’s still a shitload better than dying.” Her legs may have failed her but her arms work just fine, fists clenching and loosening as she gestures out to the jungle.

“That’s not why,” he gets out through gritted teeth, a subtle warning against her pressing the matter further.

She either doesn’t catch it or ignores it entirely, her eyes flaring. “Are you sure about that? You can’t try to make me fall in love with you if I’m stuck here while you get to go home.”

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. She’s angry, understandably so - she’s just been handed what is essentially a death sentence after all - and he knows she’s using that anger to mask the terror she’s feeling. He’s done that plenty of times himself. But her words cut deep. He’d thought that perhaps they’d made some headway in their strange relationship, such as it was, but the fact that she’s misjudged him so badly tells him otherwise.

Perhaps that’s what pushes him to say what he says next.

“Lest you forget, unless you count my ship I don’t _have_ a home. And tell me, Swan. Have you stopped to think about _why_ your father can never leave this island after drinking that water?”

Some of the animosity melts from her expression, slowly replaced by confusion. “I thought he just physically wouldn’t be able to leave.”

He shakes his head. “No. There’s no barrier to stop him from leaving if we find a way out. It’s what happens _after_ he leaves that’s important.”

Her face falls when the implications dawn on her. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_. I wouldn’t dare keep a canteen of that water on me, not for anything. All it would take is _one_ mix-up. Just one. Someone drinking from the wrong vessel, not realizing what they’d done, only to arrive home and perish before they realized the mistake they’d made.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it.”

She looks away from him, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “It wasn’t Dreamshade that killed your brother, was it?” she asks, chastened.

“No.”

The tension between them deflates somewhat, Emma’s shoulders slumping as she considers his words.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says, soft and contrite.

“It was hundreds of years ago, Swan,” he answers, suddenly feeling unbearably weary.

She shakes her head. “No, not about - I mean, I am sorry about your brother, but that’s not what I meant. What I said to you, I just - I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he replies, just as soft. “It’s been quite a morning.”

She sighs. “Have you ever been in a situation where you couldn’t see a way out? Where you just _knew_ you were going to die?”

His jaw tightens, flashbacks to a duel proposed by a Crocodile flitting through his mind. “Yes.”

“So you know, then. What I’m… you know.”

“Aye.” He doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, to reach out and place his hand over hers. It startles him, the strength of his desire to reach out and touch her, to provide any measure of comfort he can, meager as it is.

She doesn’t move at his touch and he waits, fully expecting her to draw her hand away. Instead she turns her wrist beneath his until their palms touch. He’s not sure who moves first when their fingers lace together but her grip is surprisingly strong, the metal of his rings digging into his fingers while she avoids his gaze but squeezes tight.

He squeezes back, hoping it’s enough.

* * *

The day grows hotter. Despite the shelter offered to them by the shade, the air is uncomfortably warm and stagnant, no breeze to help cool the sweat sticking to his skin. He fetches two of the canteens from the satchel, grateful that they have a decent water supply with them; they’d been stocking up for the entire camp when they were attacked. They won’t have to worry about dying of thirst anytime soon, at least. 

 _Small mercies,_ he thinks as he sits next to Emma once more and passes her a canteen. “Drink up, love. It should help keep you cool.”

“I’m actually not…” she trails off, as if it hadn’t even occurred to her. “I’m not hot at all.” She frowns. “I should be sweating my ass off.”

He hadn’t even noticed, lost as he’d been in his own thoughts, but she’s right. Every day prior she’d been covered with a faint sheen of perspiration once the sun grew high enough in the sky. “Another symptom?”

“I guess. It’s kind of nice to have a break from the heat.” She shrugs with feigned nonchalance, but he can see the trepidation there.

He doesn’t answer but reaches out to her instead, his palm flat against her forehead. She closes her eyes at his touch, her head dropping back until it’s resting against the wall behind her. “Mmm. You’re warm.”

“And you’re cool. Almost cold, even.” He tries to keep the alarm out of his voice and knows he doesn’t entirely succeed. It’s unnatural, how chilled her skin feels under his fingers, such a contrast to the hot air around them. He tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear before pulling back. “How do you feel right now? Any changes?”

She shakes her head and takes a pull from the canteen.  “No, except for the not-sweating thing.”

“You should probably eat something.” They don’t have much, just a few pieces of fruit he’d picked on the way to the stream that morning, but it’s better than nothing.

“No, we should save whatever we have. Besides, I’m not hungry.” Her eyes widen a bit, like she hadn’t even noticed a lack of hunger until she said it aloud.

He may not know what the poison is, but its effects are becoming increasingly clear - her body is slowly shutting down, one thing at a time. Little things, none of them in and of themselves too worrying, but the implications frighten him more than he cares to admit.

He wonders what will give out first, her lungs or her heart.

He pushes the thought away. “You haven’t had a meal since last night and you’ve been run through by a bloody arrow. You need to eat,” he says firmly.

She rolls her eyes. “What, to keep up the strength that I don’t have anymore? Sure, that seems like a great use of our rations.”

“Swan.”

“ _Hook_.”

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

Their heads snap in the direction of the familiar voice, the one dripping in amusement and condescension. The bloody demon appeared out of nowhere, as is his wont, and Killian is on his feet with his sword drawn in a flash.

Pan tilts his head, a smirk touching his features as he looks down at Emma. “Don’t get up on my account.”

Killian lunges with his weapon before Pan even finishes speaking, a white-hot rage consuming him before he’s thrown back against the wall in a blast of magic, his sword neatly yanked from his hand and tossed over the cliff.

“Do that again and I’ll throw more than your sword over,” Pan warns while Killian shakes his head, trying to clear it after having it bashed against the granite.

“So what were you arguing about? A lover’s spat? No, no, that can’t be it. You aren’t lovers yet.” He glances down to Emma. “And from the looks of things you never will be.” His gaze drifts back to Killian, his eyebrow raised. “You should have taken my deal, you know.”

“What the fuck have you done with Henry?” Emma growls.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Henry. He’s assimilating nicely with my little group. I’m more concerned with you, Emma. How are you feeling?”

“Bite me, you little shit.”

He ignores her and turns back to Killian. “You seem to be faring better.”

It’s his turn to smirk. “Your lackeys’ aim needs work. They wasted dozens of arrows on me.”

The knowing tilt of Pan’s head is infuriating, but his next words give Killian pause. “Are you sure about that?”

He rubs at his eyes, tired of these ridiculous games. “What do you _want_ , demon?”

“Just checking on your well-being. I’m sure Emma’s parents will be desperate to know, and now I can tell them with certainty. They’re very worried about her, you know - both her parents and Baelfire.” He considers Killian once more. “Funny, I can’t imagine them feeling the same for you.”

Killian glares, his patience worn thin. “Well, now that you’ve sated your curiosity, I’m sure you need to be off.”

Pan’s smile widens, somehow growing more sinister at the same time. “Very true.” He looks back to Emma. “I’ve got big plans for your son. You’d be proud of him, I’m sure.”

He disappears before she can respond.

* * *

 

They stay silent in the wake of Pan’s visit, Killian pulling himself back into a sitting position and mentally vowing to tear the boy limb from limb if he ever gets hand and hook on him. It’s a bloody, comforting thought, one that keeps him from having to look at Emma while they both process what just happened. What could he even say to her at this point? 

_Are you sure about that?_

Those five simple words replay over and over in his mind. Pan could have simply been lying to him, using the fact that the arrows had missed him to toy with his mind, but - no. Nothing that happens under Pan’s watch is an accident.

He was simply ensuring that Killian would be forced to watch Emma die. Of course. HIs worst-case scenario.

“What was he talking about?”

“What’s that, love?” he asks wearily, battered both physically and emotionally.

“He said you should have taken his deal. What deal?”

He lifts his head to find her looking at him curiously. “Of all the things Pan just said, _that’s_ what you’re concerned about?”

“If I think about anything else he said I’ll start screaming or crying or both. I swear to God, I can’t wait to get my hands on that little bastard.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he responds dryly.

“What deal?” she asks, undeterred.

He sighs. “When your father was poisoned and I went up Dead Man’s Peak to retrieve the water to save his life, Pan showed up. He wanted me to work for him again.”

“And you said no?”

“I said no,” he confirms.

Emma’s eyes narrow. “There’s more to it than that.”

Bloody hell, will she not let this go? He presses his thumb and forefinger over his eyes, pushing until he sees stars behind the lids. “Aye, and it’s a story for another time.”

“What, for when I’m dead?”

He grimaces. “Swan.”

“Fine, then. Why don’t we talk about what Pan might have planned for Henry? Or what my next symptom might be? I could go blind, or have trouble breathing, or start bleeding out from this fucking hole in my side. Would that be better?” She reaches for the canteen at her side and fumbles with it when she tries to unscrew the cap. She huffs in frustration shakes out her hand, much as one does when a limb has fallen asleep, and tries again. But her fingers are slow and clumsy, and after a few more attempts she sighs, setting the canteen in her lap.

His irritation with her melts away instantly. _She’s dying, you idiot, and she’s terrified_. He slowly climbs to his feet and crosses the cave until he’s kneeling next to her, carefully taking the canteen from her lap and unscrewing the lid.

“Can you hold this?” he asks gently.

She can’t bring herself to look at him when she takes it from him, pressing it between both of her palms before taking a drink. “Yeah. I’ve got it.”

“All right.” He settles down next to her once more, a little closer than last time.

“Sorry,” she finally says. “I’m just - “

“It's all right, love.” He scratches at his ear. “Pan offered me passage off the island.”

She turns her head to look at him. “What, just like that?”

“No,” he admits. “He said I could take one person with me.”

Her eyes widen in realization. “Me.”

“Yes. I refused.”

She grows quiet, passing the canteen back to him so he can screw on the lid. “Why?” she finally asks, her gaze trained downward.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t leave your son.” He shrugs. “Am I wrong?”

She regards him warily. “No. No, you’re not. What did - what did Pan want in return?”

“He wanted me to kill your father. He very specifically asked me to use my hook.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t know what or who this ‘Jesus’ is, but I can gather your meaning.”

She actually smiles a little at that. “It’s, uh, kind of blasphemous to use his name in vain.”

“Is he a god in your world?” He hasn’t had enough time to research the topic himself; he always found the religious practices of the various lands he visited interesting, but most of the time he’s spent in Storybrooke he’s either been tied up in one way or another, and when he wasn’t injured or chained there remained all the curious new technologies to discover and master. He suspects he’d need multiple lifetimes to learn them all.

“A version of one type of god, yeah. There are a lot of religions to choose from.”

“Perhaps one day I’ll finally pick one.”

Her smile turns wry. “Yeah, I didn’t peg you for a go-to-church-every-Sunday type.”

“My mother was,” he says quietly, surprising himself. “She was always telling me to say my prayers before she passed.”

“Oh.” She looks surprised, like she hadn’t even considered he’d been a child once, that he’d had parents. “How old were you when she…?”

“Five or six years, I believe. Something settled in her lungs and never left. It took her quickly.”

“I’m sorry.”

He waves her off. “It was a long time ago.”

“So you stopped praying? After she was gone, I mean.”

He shakes his head. “Not at first. I dutifully said my prayers every night for a few years after, just as she wanted.”

“What changed?”

He flashes back to a ship at sea, a storm, and a cruel captain. “I didn’t think anyone was listening.”

“I know what you mean,” she mutters, wisely not pressing the matter. “I just… I don’t understand you. Why weren’t you going to tell me about Pan’s deal?”

“What would be the point?” he asks. “It wouldn’t change anything. What would you have me do, brag about it? No. I don’t need you questioning my motives, Swan.”

“But why would I - “

“I already told you,” he says, the corners of his mouth pulling up. “No trickery. Remember?”

“Oh.” She looks a little stunned, blinking at him for a moment before averting her gaze. It’d be a fetching display in any other context but it instead it tugs at his heart, a wrenching, awful thing pulling in his chest.

He doesn’t know if he can do this again, if he can watch her gradually fade while he’s helpless to do a damned thing about it. He feels himself falling apart as slowly and surely as she, their shared dread heavy in the air between them.

It seems Pan indeed picked the perfect thing. He wants to swear, to scream, to punch the wall behind him until his fingers bleed. Instead he swallows heavily, forcing a lightness into his voice that sounds false even to his own ears.

“So, Swan. Will you continue to fight me on the matter, or will you finally eat something?"

Her quick exhale in response isn’t quite a laugh, but when she nods it loosens the tightness in his chest, if only a little.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun slowly crawls across the sky, passing its zenith and giving way to soft late-afternoon light. Neither Killian nor Emma really know what to do with themselves, and they fall into an odd type of silence the likes of which he’s never felt before. It’s not exactly uncomfortable, not even sitting as closely as they are, not even with the full weight of what’s happening to her hanging between them. It’s not uncomfortable but defeated, like waiting for a ship to slowly sink on the open sea.   

Every time he’s lost someone it’s happened quickly, going far beyond just Liam and Milah. Crewmen lost in battle or knocked overboard in violent tempests, first mates taken down by a knife fight in a tavern, a father gone without warning in the middle of the night. Death and loss are abrupt, sudden things for him, a simple flick of a wrist and a severed hand.

This is new. He knows what’s happening as well as she, both of them helpless to do any more than listen to the cliff up above, hoping for the sound of her parents or Regina coming through the woods overhead and frightened that it will never come. That’s new for him too, the fear crawling up his spine, an emotion that hasn’t seized him so completely in centuries.

For awhile he contemplates taking her hand again, lacing his fingers with hers to keep them warm, give her something to hang onto. He eventually decides against it. She’d accepted his touch earlier, even seemed to welcome it when he placed his hand to her forehead. But a sort of grim acceptance seems to have come over her ever since Pan’s visit, and he’s reluctant to try and talk much - he knows the topic of conversation would likely drift into unpleasantness soon enough.

He doesn’t know how to be there for her, but he aches to try.

“How are you feeling?” he finally asks, offering her the canteen. “Thirsty?” That works. A simple, practical question.

She gives a minute shake of her head. “No, thanks.”

“And are you feeling any different?”

She considers the question before answering; he doesn’t know if the delay is becauses she isn’t sure or because her mind is slowing down. “The same, pretty much.” She looks down to her hands, cradled in her lap. “I’m a little cold,” she admits. “And my ass has basically gone numb from sitting here.”

He can’t help it - he smiles at her choice of words. This is something he can remedy. “Just a moment, love.”

He retrieves his coat and empties the satchel, carefully arranging the spare canteens and few pieces of fruit that remain before folding the bag twice over. The thin, rough material won’t make much of a cushion, he realizes, and removes his waistcoat to go along with it. It’s better than sitting on the painfully hard ground, at least. He drops the improvised pillow next to her and holds up his coat, glad to see the relief in her eyes when she realizes what he’s doing.

He kneels next to her, looking her over and trying to figure out the easiest way to do this. “Can you sit up a bit?” he asks. “Away from the wall?”

“Help me out here? Flexing my stomach muscles isn’t the greatest idea right now.”

“Of course.” He’d been so concerned with how the poison affected her that he’d forgotten the root cause of it. The only reason he hadn’t tossed those bloody arrows off the cliff is the possibility that Regina or even the Crocodile could identify the poison on them - perhaps there is another cure that won’t leave Emma stuck on the island forever.

Provided they’re able to be found before the poison takes her, of course. He pushes the thought away.

He removes his hook from his brace before leaning in close to her and sliding his left arm behind her shoulders. “Up we go.”

He feels faintly ridiculous, almost like he’s tending to a child as he leans her away from the wall with his arm, pulling her in close to him while he swings his coat around her shoulders with his free hand. Even her breath against his shoulder feels chilled, fringes of her hair tickling his bare skin where he’d torn off his sleeve.

It’s also abundantly clear that her excuse for needing help to sit up was false from the way he needs to hold her upright against him. She couldn’t have sat up if she tried. He helps her lean back once her shoulders are covered, pulling her hair from beneath the collar and spreading it out over her shoulders. She doesn’t meet his eyes while he does it, clearly humiliated at needing to be tended to in such a way. He knows she’d fight him on it if she had the energy.

“Did I ever tell you about the loss of my hand?” he asks casually as he helps her slide her arms into the sleeves. They’re too long for her and he’s grateful for the extra fabric covering her hands; the brush of her fingers against his when he dresses her feels like ice.

“Not really,” she says, confused. “Just that Gold took it.”

He takes her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth and breathing warm air over her frigid skin. “I was more referring to the aftermath. Medical procedures on a ship can be quite crude, you know. A hot cauter was the only way to stop the bleeding.”

“Jesus.”

“There’s that name again. I’ll have to read up on the man when we get back to your home.” He takes her other hand, gives it the same treatment. “For several days after I was stricken with fever and infection. Hallucinations, too. I wasn’t particularly pleasant to be around, and by the end of it my crew had lost most of its sympathy for me.” His lips curve up. “I was a terrible patient.”

“You? I’m shocked.” Her eyebrow goes up, and there, that's what he was looking for.

“Surprising, isn’t it?” he asks, and before Emma can realize what he’s doing his arms slide beneath her, one under her knees and the other behind her back. “That someone of my disposition and tact could be brought to such a state.”

Even with his heavy coat on she’s alarmingly light and easy to lift, to move the few feet over to the makeshift pillow he’d created. “There we are,” he finally says when she’s arranged to his liking. “Perhaps that will help.”

She settles into her seat as he pulls the coat closed in front, fastening a few of the buttons that he knows her clumsy fingers can’t handle. She sighs, her eyes drifting closed for a moment as she sinks into the leather. He quite likes the look of it on her, his insides churning at the thought.

“This is good,” she finally says, catching his eye. “I, um - thanks.”

“Of course.” Instead of taking the same place beside her he remains facing her, rearranging his limbs to move from a kneeling to sitting position. He reattaches his hook before looking out to the jungle below them. It truly is a stunning sight, one he’d never allowed himself to appreciate much even in his many years here, too many dangers lurking within and his mind usually otherwise occupied. It nearly looks peaceful from this height, the sun sinking low enough to finally provide them with direct light. He shields his eyes against it but is grateful for it; the soft warmth it provides can only be good for Emma.

“At least the view’s nice.” Her voice surprises him; he’d expected them to fall into another lull of silence.

“Aye. I was just thinking the same.”

“I would have thought you’d seen everything there was to see here.”

“Not from this vantage point.” He looks back to her when she doesn’t answer, studies her profile while she’s oblivious to him. She looks unbearably sad, gazing out at Neverland, and he almost wishes he’d never brought her to this wretched place. The thought is only stopped by the knowledge that she never would have forgiven him if he hadn’t.

“Is there anything I can do, Swan?”

She shakes her head, still looking out over the valley. “No.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps I can - “

“I need Henry,” she says, turning to face him, her voice breaking on her son’s name. “I need to get the hell out of here and get to him, and take him _home_ . He needs to be with his family and sleep in his own bed and I can’t _do_ that for him. I don’t even know what’s going to happen to me! I can’t even stand up, let alone get us out of here.” She sighs, looking down. “Sorry. I just - I just need to see him.”

As a child Killian quickly learned to ignore the words of a vicious captain - words didn’t hurt, not really, at least not compared to a lash. He could forget the words so long as he had food in his belly, no matter how little, and could work on a ship without the sting of cuts and bruises all along his back. But nothing cut quite as deeply as Emma’s words to him now, a dreadful, near-physical ache as he watches her try not to cry.

He does take her hand then, as much for him as he does for her. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.” He traces her knuckles with his thumb, trying to rub some warmth into the digits, relieved when her fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around his palm. They watch the sun sink closer to the horizon for awhile, the sky fading from blue to orange to a deep blood red.

“Think it’ll get cold tonight?” she finally asks, her voice still shaky but somewhat back to normal.

“It’s hard to tell.” Some nights the temperature doesn’t drop at all and others grow chilly enough to require a fire, a faint layer of frost covering everything by the next morning that somehow doesn’t kill the forest around them. He hopes for Emma’s sake it’s the former - even his coat won’t be enough to keep her warm if it grows frigid, not with only a sleeveless shirt underneath.

“At least your arse is off the ground,” he tries, and her shocked little laugh surprises him. He grins. “I’d hate for anything to happen to it.”

“There it is,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Are you _sure_ you didn’t get hit with an arrow? I don’t think you’ve ever gone that long without flirting.”

“Oh, I’m completely intact, darling,” he tells her, tongue firmly planted in cheek as he holds up his hook. She huffs again but almost smiles and for one painful moment it’s almost like it was before, that tentative connection full of possibilities.

“Got any more pirate stories?” she asks, so quietly he almost doesn’t hear.

He can give her this, at least. He can make her as comfortable as possible and distract her with sea stories and give her a hand to hold. If he can’t heal her, if can’t get her back to her son - he can damn well give her this. “Aye.” He smiles. “Enough to fill several books.”

“Can we stick to ones where limbs don’t get severed?”

“Where’s the fun in that, Swan?”

Her eyes roll again - it’s truly a remarkable expression, one that puts to shame every teenager he’s ever met. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Despite everything he finds himself laughing. “As you wish.”

* * *

The night is not kind to them. Killian regales Emma with some of his more lighthearted tales - Starkey’s misadventure with a sultan’s daughter in Agrabah particularly seems to amuse her - but once the sun goes down the temperature drops considerably. It’s nothing he can’t handle, nothing he hasn’t felt a thousand times sailing over a frigid ocean. Emma, however, struggles.

At first her teeth only lightly chatter and she pushes through it, encourages him to keep talking after he pulls his coat around her more tightly. Within another hour she’s shivering so violently he doubts she even notices a single word he says.

When she can’t even answer his increasingly-worried “Emma? _Emma,_ ” he makes a decision.

He’s grateful for the bright light of the moon as he shifts and kneels next to her, moving as quickly as he can to unfasten the buttons of the coat he’d dressed her in earlier.

“W-w-what are y-y-you - ?” she manages to get out.

“This will be better in just a moment, love,” he assures her. “Hang on.”

As soon as the buttons are undone he removes his hook once more, using the arm to lift her from the wall while he pulls the coat from her shoulders. She lets out a whimper, an involuntary, heart-rending noise when the cool air hits her flesh. When he pulls her arm from the sleeve her skin is like ice, much colder than the air around them. Repeating the action on the other side is an awkward job but he works fast, trying his best not to jostle her tired limbs.

He drops the coat to the side and gathers her in his arms, turning to sit with his back to the wall and settling her in his lap, her cheek pressed against his collarbone. Finally satisfied, he pulls the coat over top of them, an improvised blanket of thick leather. His hand finds her upper arm and he rubs briskly beneath the coat, trying to create some friction between them.

If her body can’t generate enough heat help keep her warm, he’ll do it for her.

It takes several long, terrifying minutes before her shivering begins to subside. “There we are,” he says, slowing the passes of his palm over her skin. “Any better?”

“Yeah.” Her voice is raw and tired and for a moment he thinks her eyelids will droop, that she’ll fall asleep - he knows she needs the rest but part of him dreads it, his stomach clenching at the prospect of Emma drifting off only to never wake up.

“You’re warm,” she mumbles against his collarbone, a momentary reprieve from the reality of another person he cares about dying in his arms. He strains to keep his voice light, an ongoing battle he’s been waging with himself ever since they were trapped that morning. It’s an exhausting struggle, one that annoys him as much as it wears him down. _You’re not the one bloody dying. Be strong._

“That’s the idea, Swan. I’m afraid I’m not quite as comfortable as a bed, but I’ll have to do.”

“Hey, I’ve slept in a car before. This is fine.” Her voice sounds stronger, no longer shaking with cold. “And it’s a hell of a lot better than some of the beds I had in foster care.”

His hand stills against her arm. “What is foster care, exactly?” The term is strange on his tongue.

“It’s… something they do for kids without parents. Or if kids are taken away from bad parents, I guess. You’re put in a temporary custody of another family, and the government pays them to do it. If they like you, they can adopt your permanently. Or sometimes you’re put in a group home.”

He immediately regrets asking her. “That sounds dreadful.”

“It is. Some of them were only in it for the paycheck. Some were nice and some… weren’t.”

He shakes his head, all manner of horrific visions of what could be possible in such a system floating through his head. From the way she speaks, she was in multiple homes over the course of her childhood. “I’m sorry, Swan. We don’t need to talk about this.”

“It’s fine. Just… keep me awake, okay? I’m afraid if I - “ she stops.

His breath catches. He’d known she was scared, could see it all over her features all day, but for her to finally say so out loud - it breaks the last bit of tension between them. As close as they are physically, she's stopped hiding behind any remaining walls by saying the words. It would feel momentous were he not as frightened as she.

“I’ll keep you awake,” he agrees, soft against her temple. His hand finds hers beneath his coat but she's unable to lace her fingers with his. He swallows and completes the action for her. “As charming as this _foster care_ sounds, we didn't exactly have an equivalent in the Enchanted Forest. We did have orphanages.”

“That's basically what a group home is,” she says. They've both gone quiet, soft with their words and near to whispering.

“So that’s what they call them in your world. Such a pleasant name for such an awful thing,” he muses.

“Yeah. Were you ever in one?”

He pauses. “No. I never was. Plenty of my crew members and more than a few cabin boys were. I’ve heard their stories.”

“Raised by your dad, then? After your mom…” she trails off.

“For a few years,” he allows. He knows she’ll drop it if he doesn’t continue. After a moment, he sighs and keeps going. “My father was on the run from the law. He sold me and Liam as a means to escape.”

Weak as she is, Emma tenses against him. “He _sold_ you?”

“Aye.”

“That’s - _Jesus_.” He smiles quietly at her repeated use of the word. “Even fairy tale worlds have slaves. Your father sucks.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t make it any better,” she murmurs. “And I thought I had it bad.”

“It’s not a contest, love. And given our current situation, I think we can call it even.”

“Yeah.” She coughs into his chest then, but it’s a weak, tragic thing, and as surely as her body melts into his he can feel her fading.

“Emma?”

“Hm?” It’s a low, stretched-out syllable, not even a word.

“You told me to keep you awake.”

“Mmm. M’tired.”

He closes his eyes, squeezing her fingers tight. “Stay with me, just for a moment. I need you to hear this.”

She breathes deep, a concerted action on her part, one that’s followed by another feeble cough. “Hear what?”

"I brought you to Neverland because I didn't want Baelfire's son to suffer the same fate that he did. That you or I did. I swear to you, Emma, your son will get home safe. I’ll see to that.” If he has to make another bloody deal with Pan only to turn on him at the last minute, has to wait to be rescued, has to slide down the cliffside using his hook to slow him down enough to possibly make the drop only brutal and not fatal - he will.

Emma grows quiet. For one heart-stopping moment he thinks she’s drifted off, never heard his words, but her next breath shudders against him. “Thank you,” she whispers, quiet and broken but he feels it down to the marrow of his bones.

He doesn’t answer, merely rests his cheek against the top of her head, pulls her in closer, and waits for her to die.

* * *

The night is uncharacteristically still, no chirping insects or cries of the Lost Boys echoing across the land. Only the sound of Emma’s increasingly-shallow breaths keep them company. When he looks down at her he can see her eyes are still open but blankly staring, probably completely unseeing. Their little cave feels more like a church, or a tomb, a fragile moment bigger than either of them. 

For the first time in centuries, Killian Jones prays.

To whom, he’s not sure. He’s met many gods in his travels, after all, and most weren’t of the benevolent sort. But he silently puts his thoughts out into the universe and hopes someone will listen, perhaps grant them a reprieve. Grant _her_ a reprieve.

He first prays for Emma, for some miraculous cure he knows won’t come. Then he prays for escape. For David or Snow or Regina or, gods, even the Crocodile to pull them from the tomb, prays for enough time to get back to Dead Man’s Peak for the water that would save her. If Emma were stuck in Neverland, he would stay, he knows, the once-horrifying prospect now a pipe dream.

She makes a soft noise against his chest, somewhere between a moan and a whimper.

“It’s all right,” he murmurs against her ear in as soothing a tone as he can muster, not sure if she can understand his words or even hear him. “I’ve got you.”

He adjusts his prayers. He prays that she’s not in any pain. He prays that she somehow feels he’s keeping her comfortable and safe, even if it’s a lie. He prays that her last thoughts are pleasant ones. He prays he’s still keeping her warm. He prays she’s still with him to see the sunrise.

He prays he’s not the one who has to tell her parents.

Emma makes another noise, quieter than before. His hand finds her hair, combing his fingers against her scalp and she hums, so he continues the motion and listens to her breathe. He counts the time between her faint little wheezes just as he’s done since he pulled her into his lap. The interval slowly stretches out each time, a half-second here or there, more disquieting every time he counts it.

It won’t be long now.

“Swan,” he whispers, pulling his coat more snugly over them before returning his hand to her hair. “Emma. Let me tell you a story.”

* * *

 It’s so warm like this, propped against him with the heat of his skin seeping into hers. She can’t see him, not anymore, nor the stars in the sky or the jungle below. At some point her vision began to expand and contract all at once, a fuzzy, swelling blackness that overtook her perception before shrinking down into nothingness.

She also knows that she can’t shut her eyes, even if she can’t remember why. Even if she can’t see. Something terrible will happen if she does, she thinks, though she’s not quite sure what it is.

She tried to tell him when her vision failed but the words wouldn’t work, just as useless as her eyes. He seemed to know, seemed to sense her fear, and he pulled her closer and told her everything would be all right. She can’t really remember what’s wrong - she has a hard time remembering things now - but she knows that she was cold and scared and now she is not.

She’s glad she can still hear him. His voice is as warm as the rest of him, low and soothing and though it feels like it wraps around her it sounds so very far away. She can feel his hand on her head, too, the pleasant way it scratches through her hair, but it too feels odd and distant, like she’s not entirely within herself. She’s floating, in and out and she wants to stay, wants to keep feeling his fingers in her hair and his breath against her skin. But she is tired, so, so very tired, and the temptation to give in to sleep is strong. It’s easier to stay when he speaks again, some kind of story he wants to tell her. She’s not sure how she knows, but she likes his stories.

She isn’t able to make out all the words, some of them floating away in the strange, languid state she finds herself in. But for several minutes she simply listens to the sound of his voice. It envelops her, low and rough but still gentle and affectionate, like there’s some shared secret between the two of them, wrapping them up and keeping them safe as she drifts.

She only catches bits and pieces, but the story is about a beautiful brave princess who overcomes a dreadful childhood to find her family and save them in the process. She travels to wondrous realms and meets colorful characters along the way, some who even become her friends. And even if she is unable to escape the terrible land she’s found herself in, her beloved son will always be safe because he has people to watch over him. His grandparents, a king and a queen. A powerful sorceress and a dark wizard with incredible magic. A pirate.

His words, soft and far away as they are, are enough to allow Emma to close her eyes and let her heart rest.

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final part of the main fic, but there will be an epilogue. Thanks for reading!

Killian knows, even before she exhales, that Emma has taken her last breath. Her body sags against his and her eyes close as the air leaves her, her hand dropping from its place on his chest. The sudden quiet startles his ears.

He holds his own breath and looks out to the night sky, his hand continuing its soft strokes through her hair. Numbness overtakes him then, a great, detached void settling in his chest as he stares into the darkness, paralyzed in place.

That blissful nothingness only lasts a few moments. His body screams for him to breathe and when he finally exhales it’s a brutal, shuddering thing, the air burning his lungs as he gasps and pulls Emma closer, holding her slouching form upright against him. His hand shakes as he holds her - his entire body shakes, trembling just as violently as Emma had shivered, his heart dropped to the pits of his stomach and his head swimming, his thoughts a chaotic mess.

He’d always had people, before. Crew members who pulled him back while the ship’s doctor tried to revive Liam. A first mate who dragged him, kicking and screaming, to be seen to before he bled out from the loss of his hand. People who told him where to go and what to do, physically carried him there if they had to. People who _handled_ things.

Now he’s nowhere to go and no one to aid him. And gods help him, he doesn’t know what to do.

He blindly holds her, and for a few minutes he closes his eyes and pretends. Acts as though she’s merely sleeping and he’s simply keeping her comfortable and warm. Acts as though the lack of rise and fall in her chest is no trouble at all, that she’ll wake soon and breathe and feel better, perhaps even listen to another of his stories.

He still shakes, buzzing with shock but heavy with dread. It takes the first touch of light in the sky, the first signs of morning, for him to look down at her and think about moving. It unnerves him to see her peaceful face resting gently against his chest, no furrow left in her brow and her eyelashes fanning across pale cheeks.

 _Move_ , he tells himself. _You need to move._

And yet he can’t find it within himself - what can he even do? Lay her on the cold - no. No, that won’t do at all. But he can’t hold her forever ( _not anymore_ , a cruel voice, one that sounds suspiciously like Pan’s, slithers into his head to tell him), and it gives him someplace to start. He carefully lifts his coat from them both and shakes it out, spreading it on the ground next to him as best he can with one arm. It feels strange to do so, the compulsion to keep her warm strong though she doesn’t need it anymore, won’t ever need it again.

He lifts her easily, setting her on the coat and cradling the back of her head as he lowers her down. He finds himself at a loss once he lets go, a painful tug in his chest when he pulls his hand from her hair. He straightens out her legs and arranges her arms across her stomach in a daze, his body moving automatically as he tries to make her presentable - for whom or what he’s not sure, but he finds himself wishing he had another shirt he could put her in, not one so torn and bloody. He idly wonders if she would even approve of him changing her clothes ( _would have approved_ , his mind corrects).

He settles for tugging her shirt down, arranging the torn bits to cover her exposed skin. His hand begins to shake once more when he touches the bloody fabric and he gulps in large lungfuls of air, making a fist and trying to steady himself. His hand hovers over her body, still unsure, until it drifts upward and he gently brushes her hair from her face. 

He takes his time, combing out the tangles as best he can with his fingers and tucking the strands behind her ears. Once finished, he looks her over, making sure he’s missed nothing, that there’s not anything else he can -

He nearly collapses in on himself. If they’re ever found, this is the best he can muster. Visions of her parents’ faces if they do find them - he’ll have to explain what happened, they’ll deserve to know and he doesn’t think he can ever tell this story to another soul, not do it and remain standing, and then her _son_ , bloody hell -

Everything burns. His eyes, his throat, his chest, a white-hot pain searing through him that steals the breath from his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” he says to an audience that can’t hear him. He looks down to Emma again. “I couldn’t - I’m sorry.”

Guilt and heartache overwhelm him all at once as he leans down, fingers brushing her hair before he presses his lips to her forehead.

He feels the warmth before anything else, a sweeping sensation that starts in his lips against her skin and softly runs through him. It settles in his heart, sweetly knitting the shattered pieces back together and he gasps at the feeling, only barely registering the soft bloom of light and mild breeze that ruffles his hair.

Emma gasps below him, too.

Her eyes pop open and it’s impossible, she was _gone_ and lifeless but she’s gasping, wildly looking around in confusion and -

“ _Emma_?” The word is croaked-out, disbelieving, and he can only stare, his stomach churning and his chest squeezing with a wild, desperate hope.

“Hook?” Her voice is shot through with disuse and sleep - with _death_ \- but it’s real and _alive_ and he never thought he’d hear it again, and she bolts into a sitting position while he leans back to keep them from knocking heads, and he’s grabbing her upper arm to keep her from panicking though he’s so very near to it himself and her skin is warm, so _warm_ beneath his palm. “What - what happened?”

He doesn’t even bloody _know_ but his smile splits his face for how wide it is, a disbelieving laugh escaping him. “You’re alive.” The words are even more beautiful out loud.

She shakes her head, grips the front of his shirt as she looks around - the cave, the coat he’d laid her out on, the sun slowly beginning to creep over the jungle below - and then back to him, and she laughs, actually _laughs_ , a bewildered, joyous, staggeringly _relieved_ noise emerging from an incredulous smile. “I’m alive. What - “

His arms go around her then, his hand pressed into her hair while his wrist settles at the small of her back. He’s afraid to grip at her too hard at first but her arms latch around his shoulders, fingers digging in as she clings to him, pulling him in closer. A shared sigh of relief passes between them and they rock together where they sit, a nigh-imperceptible sway of their bodies while they both learn to breathe again.

She starts laughing again while they embrace each other and he joins in, both of them delirious and almost hysterical with it. His head is still spinning when he pulls back to look at her, his grin splitting his face. “Bloody hell, Swan, I thought you’d - “

His words are cut off when she hauls him into her, her lips closing over his and he forgets to think at all, can’t possibly hold a thought in his head with her mouth on his and one palm pressed to his chest while the other curls into the back of his hair. Her lips are so, so soft and the rough press of her mouth melts into something deeper. It feels like a celebration, a thank you, so different from the last time she pulled him to her, her first kiss a fight and her second a dance. It takes a moment for him to catch up but when they finally move together it’s glorious. It’s measured and slow, only a soft swipe of her tongue before she pulls away, her forehead pressed to his as they breathe together.

“What - what happened?” she asks, and he notes with some satisfaction that she’s as out of breath as he (she’s _breathing_ , bloody hell).

“I - “ he pauses, trying to give his brain time to come to the present. He’d been staring at her lips, distracting as they were, but he lifts his eyes to hers when the full weight of what happened comes crashing down on him, exhilaration crossed with dread. He never in his wildest dreams thought - bloody hell, it means she’s his -

“Hook? _Hook_.” Her voice snaps him out of his reverie, her features growing concerned. “What’s wrong? What the hell happened? What did you _do_?

His throat goes dry. “I kissed you.”

She rolls her eyes, almost embarrassed, and he can’t even enjoy it because part of him knows how she’ll react when he tells her. “I think I kissed _you_.”

“No, love.” He takes her hand from his chest and squeezes, hoping she won’t retreat back into herself. “You were dead.” She pulls back slightly at his words. “You’d stopped breathing. You didn’t have a heartbeat. You were _gone_.” His voice shakes on the last word. “And I kissed you, here.” He releases her hand to brush his thumb across her forehead. She doesn’t flinch at his touch, frozen in place as she takes in his words. “And then you woke up.”

She blinks, startled. “No. That can’t be… that’s not - “

“Yes,” he says, willing her to believe him, hardly believing it himself. “That arrow wasn’t poisoned. It was cursed.”

She shakes her head, scooting back to place some distance between them and he deflates where he sits as she moves away from him. “That doesn’t make any sense.” She moves even farther, wincing as she goes - his kiss may have lifted the curse but her wound is still there. “Something else had to have happened, there’s no way…” she trails off, unable to look at him.

“Doubt all you want, Swan, but _it happened_. Do you think I’m lying to you?’

She lifts her head her eyes meet his. He can feel her reading him, can sense that she desperately wants it all to be a fiction and sees when her face falls as she realizes it is not.

He sighs, the sting of rejection overwhelming his better judgment and the feel of her lips still burned into his. “Is this about Baelfire, then?”

She huffs. “No! I swear to God, if one more person thinks I want to get back with Neal…”

He files that away for later examination, his mind racing too quickly to ponder on it much. “What, then? What doesn’t make sense? That the arrow was cursed or that I woke you with a kiss?” he asks, dejected.

“Either,” she says, stunned.

That’s what makes him snap, too many emotional swings in the last minute to allow him to keep calm. “Don’t lie to me, Swan,” he says, darkly. “A curse was bloody brilliant. Even if we hadn’t been trapped here, everyone would have been scrambling for a way to cure you of _poison_. You’d have drunk that water to no effect, and even if any us - your mother, or father, or yes, even me - had kissed you, you’d be alive but stuck on this bloody island.” He shakes his head. “No, it’s not the curse that’s unbelievable to you. It’s that I was able to break it.”

“But it doesn’t - you - we barely know each other,” she says weakly.

“You didn’t kiss me like a stranger just now,” he mutters.

“That was - “

“A two-time thing?” he interrupts, unable to completely keep the scorn out of his voice.

“Don’t be an asshole. I was relieved, okay? Waking up from the damned dead was the first moment I’ve had here that didn’t actively suck, and I just - ”

“Are you really telling me you would have kissed just anyone in that situation? After last night, you know me better than any living person in all the realms,” he reminds her. “And, I’d wager, the opposite is likely true as well.”

“I was _dying_.”

“I bloody well know that! In exquisite detail, in fact.” Something in his words must reach her, because the fight visibly drains from the set of her shoulders as he speaks.

“Look,” she says, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t just go telling my life story to everybody I meet. I was scared, and you were - “

“I was what?”

She has no answer for that.

“Swan, you can’t just sweep this under the rug and pretend this doesn’t mean anything. It means _everything_. You and I both know what happened, and whether you like it or not that was a - ”

“Don’t say it.” She sighs, but drops her hands and looks him in the eye. “Thank you,” she tells him, and the sudden sincerity in her voice floors him. “For taking care of me. And for…” she hesitates. “For waking me up. But we’re still stuck and Henry’s still out there and I can’t _do_ this right now.” She looks around (for an escape route, he’s certain) before returning her gaze to his, imploring. “Please.”

He can only stare back, for as desperately as he wants to press the issue he knows she’s right. They have a mission, one he promised her he’d help see through, and he could no sooner get her to talk right now than convince her to jump off the cliff.

“All right,” he finally allows. “But make no mistake, Swan, I won’t drop the matter completely. When we get home - “ he stops, but he knows she’s remembering his words from a few days earlier. _That’s when the fun begins_.

“I thought you didn’t have a home,” she says, soft.

“I don’t,” he agrees. “But perhaps someday I can find one."

* * *

When Regina’s tracking spell finds them a few hours later and Emma is back in the arms of her parents, neither of them speak a word of what passed between them. 

“She had a rough night, but was feeling better by morning,” is all he says. David especially looks at him curiously, but the grateful look Emma shoots him makes him feel marginally better. He ignores the pointed stares from Regina and leads the way back to camp, trying to keep his heart from cracking in his chest.

* * *

 

In the end it’s his own weapon that takes Pan down, a startling, almost anticlimactic moment where he’s able to run the demon through when he was momentarily distracted by one of Regina’s fireballs. He’s never felt much satisfaction in killing another, found it more a chore than anything else even in his darkest days as a pirate, but this is different entirely - vengeance for Henry, for Bae, for Liam, for Emma - all wrapped up in one deadly swipe of a sword.

He falls to his knees from the exertion when he’s done, the culmination of a long battle as he and the rest of the group stare at each other in stunned silence when they realize what has happened, when Pan’s lifeless body falls to a heap in the middle of the jungle. Death, it seems, has returned to a form he is more familiar with - quick, brutal, and merciless.

* * *

 

He tosses and turns in his bunk, unable to sleep. He blames it on the unfamiliar mattress - the first mate’s sleeping accommodations aren’t up to his usual standards. He’d left Baelfire to steer the ship while they make their way back to Storybrooke, the last of his energy leaving him once Henry’s heart was safely returned to him. But his swirling thoughts override his exhaustion and it must have been hours since he first put his head to the pillow. 

_True Love’s Kiss._

It’s the first time he’s allowed the actual words to enter his mind, turning the phrase over and over in his head. _True Love._ He could have been ready for it, given a little more time. He was already prepared to love her.

He should have known the moment she offered him the chance to join them, to be a part of something, but it took a blistering kiss that left him unsteady on his feet and the hollowness he felt when she walked away from him to truly realize it. Until that point he’d written off his attraction to her as merely that, and after it’d taken him a sleepless night to convince himself that he wasn’t somehow betraying Milah’s memory.

He could love again, yes. He could fight for it with every fiber of his being, as he always did. But True Love? It feels bigger, somehow, like a responsibility he’s not ready for. Like something he could ruin. But he can’t lie to himself, not about this, not when he thinks on how he felt when Emma died in his arms - or how it felt when he brought her back, unnerving and surprising and _beautiful_.

In any other situation he’d proceed as he always does when his heart wants something - headfirst and full-speed. But that’s impossible now, not with how Emma responded once she realized what happened. He’d heard so many similar stories over the years, even that of Emma’s own parents, but a True Love’s Kiss followed by disbelief and denial wasn’t one of them. When he thinks back to what he knows about her, however, it doesn’t surprise him.

_Maybe I was in love once._

_You and I, we understand each other. Look out for yourself and you’ll never get hurt._

_I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong about you._

He should have realized in the beginning how absurd it was to try and pit himself against against Baelfire for her affections. He’d been too busy considering him as possible competition to realize Bae had obviously burned her badly. And now -

\- now he has a True Love who’s terrified of love itself.

(Is it really True Love if one party is unwilling?)

His only consolation is that somewhere, deep inside her, she feels the same for him as he for her. The kiss wouldn’t have worked otherwise. But he can’t help but ponder whether it would have worked at all were she not in the state she was in, barely conscious and likely just as unaware of her surroundings. Can she only accept love when she’s on death’s door and hardly able to think?

He rolls over in his bunk, trying to find a comfortable position. It seems sleep won’t come for him tonight. He tosses and turns uselessly. He’s so accustomed to the familiar rocking of waves against the ship to lull him into sleep, but their passage through clear air and realms and whatever else doesn’t offer the same comfort. It’s quiet - too quiet, but perhaps that’s what allows him to hear the faintest of knocks to his bedchambers. He’s upright in an instant, a shadow cast in the light beneath the door.

“Come in,” he calls. The shadow hesitates for a moment before the door opens.

Emma hardly seems to be able to look his way when she steps inside. “Hey.”

He pushes the covers back and swings his legs over the edge of the bunk, sitting upright to face her. “Hello.”

“I thought you’d be asleep.”

“And I you.” He reaches to his bedside and lights the lantern sitting there, a soft glow cast about the room. He gestures towards to the lone chair next to the tiny desk pushed against the wall. “Have a seat, Swan.”

She pauses, as though she’s thinking the better of it, but moves to take the chair. She settles into it with her shoulders slumped, looking every bit as exhausted as he feels. She’s not even in her nightclothes yet, still in the all-black ensemble she wore throughout the day. Belatedly he realizes he’s shirtless. It doesn’t seem to bother her one way or the other, but he’s quick to slide his left wrist under the covers, his hook and brace removed before he’d first climbed into bed.

“Hey,” she says softly when she realizes what he’s doing. “It’s okay.”

It feels like an olive branch, one he’s reluctant to accept lest it be snatched away again.

He slowly removes his wrist from the sheets and sets it in his lap, waiting for her reaction. She doesn’t give much of one, merely lets her eyes fall to his blunted wrist for a few seconds to take it all in. There’s no disgust or, thankfully, pity as she simply looks. It feels painfully intimate sitting before her like this, but there’s no awkwardness in it, just a simple, quiet moment.

The discomfort returns where her eyes meet his once more. “So,” she says.

“So.” He sighs. “Is this how it’s going to be between us?”

She slouches even further. “I don’t know.”

“Then why did you come to me?”

“I just felt like I should.” She shrugs. “I don’t really know what to do now. You hear all these fairytales about what’s supposed to happen and I’m just… not that.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to immediately get married and ride off into the sunset on a white horse?” he asks, attempting levity but regretting it immediately when he sees the look of horror on her face. “Calm down, Swan. I’m not proposing.”

She rolls her eyes. “Bad idea unless you want me to run away screaming.”

He can’t help it - he smiles. “It’s strange. I can’t picture you running away from anything except love. Why is that?”

She flinches on the word _love_ but stays in her seat, which he takes as a victory. “It’s complicated.”

“On the contrary, I think it’s rather simple. Your first and likely only love hurt you. Badly.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” she mutters.

He doesn’t press the issue, not now at least, but it tells him all he needs to know. “Has it really frightened you that much?” he asks softly. “That you’ll never want to try again? I’m not him.”

“I know you aren’t. I just - I meant it when I said we barely know each other. We know a little bit about each other’s childhoods, but beyond that, really? I don’t know what books like or how you because a pirate or anything, and you don’t know my coffee order or my favorite movies and - hell, you don’t even know what movies _are_. And now fate is suddenly coming in and telling me how to feel about you?” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that. Not with me.”

“I want to know you, Emma.” He looks her directly in the eye when he says it, hoping she hears the sincerity in his words. “And I think you’ve got it backwards. Fate isn’t telling you _how_ to feel. It’s telling you what’s already there.”

She stiffens in her chair. “I didn’t think that… _this_ was in the cards for me. It’s something that happens to other people in fairytales, not out in the real world. All swelling music and miracles and - “

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that not what happened? You are raised from the dead, after all. And gave me quite a spectacular kiss immediately afterwards.”

Even in the dim light he can see the flush crawl up her cheeks.

“Just answer me one thing, Swan.”

“What?”

“Can you remember anything from right before you died? You couldn’t talk, and I didn’t know if you were… aware of what was happening.”

She looks down, biting her lip. “Yeah, I do.”

“What do you remember?” he presses gently.

“You keeping me warm.”

“Is that all?”

She sighs. “Hook - “

“Please.”

She glances up, looking like she wants to put him off but she must see something in him that convinces her to keep talking. “You telling me that Henry would be safe because he had so many people to watch over him.” She looks up again. “Did you mean that? If I would have died, you still would have - “

“Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate. He waits for her while she studies him, no doubt putting her gift for detecting lies to use. Her face is nearly unreadable but her shoulders relax slightly after a few moments.

“All I’m asking is that you think about that. About how you _felt_. Be honest with yourself. And if you still think that I’m - that _this_ isn’t worth a try, I’ll drop the matter entirely and speak a word of it to no one.”

She takes a long time before answering, green eyes dark in the lamplight still locked on his, vaguely stunned. “Okay,” she whispers.

He expects that to be it, for her to excuse himself and come to him later with an answer once they’re settled back in Storybrooke. But her gaze drops to her hands in her lap and she says nothing, makes no move to speak or leave and he finds himself tensing where he sits, wondering what she’s on about.

The silence grows between them and he waits, the knot in his middle tightening in anticipation of whatever else she might be gathering the courage to say to him.

“I, uh. Henry and I have been through a lot. I’m gonna need some time before I can - before we - try,” she finally says.

He exhales with a sudden rush of relief, long and deep. It’s so much more than the outright rejection he was expecting that he feels almost lightheaded with hope and surprise, but he can’t just leave it there. “I can give you that, love. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let you use it as an excuse to put me off forever.”

Her lips actually quirk up at that and she stands, slowly crossing the distance between them with careful steps and looking down at him where he sits on the bed. When she leans down it almost feels like a dream, time slowing as she closes the space between them and he barely remembers to close his eyes, to kiss her back before she’s already pulling away, the brief touch of her mouth seared into his skin and his shoulders burning where her palms rested fleetingly.

It feels like a promise.

“Be patient,” she whispers before exiting the room, leaving him to sit there, astonished.

*


End file.
